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Topic: First pictures of my bees on a frame (Read 17336 times)

My daughter was helping me feed the other day so I decided I should get some pictures. I got her all suited up but she said she could not use the gloves to take pictures. The closer I got to her the further away she walked. The two pictures are of the center frame of the top hive body, both are deeps.

"Tell me and I'll forget,show me and I may remember,involve me and I'll understand" Chinese Proverb

"The farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything at retail, sells everything at wholesale, and pays the freight both ways." John F. KennedyFranklin County Beekeepers Association MA. http://www.franklinmabeekeepers.org/

Well I looked at the hive today and it did not look good. The two pictures I posted above look about the same but funnier looking. The bees are making the comb but some are smaller than others and there are a few, by themselves, that stick straight out and are capped. Im going to try to get some pictures and post them because I dont think they look right.

Shawn, sometimes the bees do build funny comb. Bring on the pictures, we would all love to see them. The pictures were very nice, by the way, cute about your Daughter backing up as you came closer, hee, hee. Beautiful and most wonderful day, Cindi

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There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold. The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold. The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee. Robert Service

ok here are the pictures of the same two frames as above. If anyone could tell me maybe what they are doing or why the comb is looking funny. If you notice some of the comb looks dark brown, some white or yellowish, some cells are capped all by themselves.

Woops. I copied the wrong image from Image shack and had to modify the post. If anyone woudl like me to email them the pictures in their original size so you can soom in let me know. I really want to know why the comb is looking so strange.

From looking at the last picture, you have either a drone-laying queen or you have a laying worker. In both case, they can only lay unfertilized eggs which turn into drones.

Because drones are larger, they end up either re-working the comb or drawing out foundation badly. You will see "bullet-shaped" brood capping, often by themselves, very scattered laying pattern.

You won't see regular capped worker brood which will be flat regular cappings.

If you can't see a queen then they probably have a laying worker. If they had flat capped worker brood in the past then you had a queen that may have died, and they didn't raise another successfully. If you never saw that, then likely the queen died before she could lay.

Do you have a queen in there? Either way you've got a big problem with the hive.

Well I guess I am going to take off the top hive body and look around the bottom hive body. I thought the queen was still alive but from what you say Im not sure any more. Ill try to get to it today and maybe snap some pictures of the bottom hive body. I guess Ill need to go read the post on how to deal with a laying worker! If I find the imposter she is in a lot of trouble. :-x

Well I went to check the body hive but my son was not home to take photos. My daughter asked if she could do the photos and how could I say no. She ran to get her brother's suit and came out with the camera. I got into the bottom hive and found lots of honey mixed with brood. I did notice some of the comb looked very dark brown and little chunks were missing from the middle of areas. I saw losts of drones, not as many workers as I thought by this time of the year, new ones hatching, and I think larve at diferent stages. I took each frame out and walked them over to my daughter. As I went to look down on the frame I see two feet and bare toes. My daughter got all protected except for her flip flops. I noticed bees falling off the frame around her feet. No stings today! The pictures are below of the bottom hive body frames. I did see some cells with a red liquid in them, actually quite a few, not sure what it is. The alst two are of higher resolution because I feel you can see the brood better and the bees. Although I didnt see a queen I think by what I see there might be one. Please let me know what you all think. And yes I think my daughter did a better job taking the photos this time.

This is just my first year, so take what I am about to say with a grain of salt.

One of your frames looks a mess and even though there is larvae in the one close up picture there seems to be a lot of drone cells being made.

Have you seen any multi egg cells?

It really looks like you might have a laying worker(s). I have one. If I have time today I am going to take care of it. Been meaning to do it for a month now and probably have frames of nothing but drones.

I could be completely wrong in regards to a possible problem though with your colony. There seem to be a couple similarities...which does not mean a whole lot sometimes. :-D

Thanks for everyone responses. I did in deed have a laying worker. I never saw two or more eggs in a cell but yes there were LOTS of drone cells. I ordered a Goldline queen as posted in the requeening section. So I put her in and the rains came, really it started raining. I started noticing lots, well maybe not piles but more than usuall, of bees outside the hive. It also looked like larva also sitting right outside the hive. We got losts of rain for the past week and a half and today was the first day I got the chance to go check to see if they accepted her, she was out of the cage. I pulled out teh first frame on the top deep super. I noticed the comb was not the best but it sure was looking more even and lots less drone cells. I did not see the queen and was getting a little worried. I fliped the frame over and BAM there she was. My Goldline Queen was alive and walking around looking in the cells. YEA!!!! Here is one picture of her. I didnt want to keep her out too long so my son took two but you can only see her on the one posted. Thanks again everyone for the advise.

Oh, the queen is located on near the top of the frame to the left of the cluster of bees. The frame is the same as the 4th one down from the top of the post.

Well again I checked on the bees but I did not see the queen. I took off the top hive body and did not see hardly any bees below. Im guessing I only have maybe a thousnad bees left in the hive. My question is if the queen is there can I put in some caped brood frames with bees from another hive and hope for the best, do I just let them go, do i combine what is in the top hive body with the bottom? All these factors depend if my queen is still there. When I cheked it was still cool and the bees were bunched up to much for me to really see. Ill check again in the afternoon when its in the 90s.

I am able to obtain frmaes of brood from another beek here in town that I help. Some of his hives have turned in to what I say is a super hive, two deep and two mediums as the hive no supers. He has several others that are extremely over crowded and he says they will be fine if I take some frames.

How do you like your PF frames? I have the same ones. My only trouble is SHB. They are hard to see on the black. If i had the white I could mash a lot more!!! They are drawing out my frames really well. I do get some brace comb but was told to scrape it off and make them start again. Had my frames/bees from cutout since July.

I dont mind them but I wish I would have started out with wood and foundation. I have found two that have warped but not while in the hive body. As of today I have not seen an SHB in the hive or in this area :).

I thought I would follow up the post I made earlier in this thread. The hive that I thought had laying workers and was pumping out drones now is queenright. I have no idea what happened. Its a completely different queen, quite dark and laying in a fairly nice pattern.

I have absolutely no idea what happened. I was being lazy about dumping the colony and placing a similar colored smaller hive in its place to receive the foragers. Probably three weeks went by before I decided to toss 'em out. I was looking through it after I saw brood and single eggs and a no drone and found a fat queen laying like there was no tomorrow.